Pirates & Puritans

Boston in 1694, by Cyprian Southack, legendary Massachusetts privateer during King William’s War and Queen Anne’s War. In the former he commanded the Mary and Province Galley privateers, and in the latter the old and new Province Galley. (Leventhal Map and Education Center.)

In recognition of the recent Thanksgiving Holiday, a few words from fictional and factual accounts about Puritans and their rather unsurprising early support of pirates and most especially–most because, in other words–their plunder.

I’m well aware, as are most readers, that Thanksgiving’s origin lies with Pilgrims and Native Americans, and the Pilgrims were not Puritans, at least not as we generally think of them. Historians tell us the Pilgrims were Brownist Puritans, a separate sect. Even so, there’s a strong association with Puritans and the holiday, correct or not, doubtless due to the dominance of the “purifying” (the Church of England of so-called Catholic practices) faith soon after in seventeenth century New England. And some historians do date our modern Thanksgiving to a Puritan celebration of Thanksgiving in 1631. I’ll leave the hair-splitting to the specialists in this area.

In Fiction

Fiction offers surprisingly few accounts good of Puritans and pirates, at least relative to other peoples and places, and pirates. Of those that exist, the most famous is surely the brief but fact-based description in Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter :

“Not to speak of the clergyman’s health, so inadequate to sustain the hardships of a forest life, his native gifts, his culture, and his entire development, would secure him a home only in the midst of civilization and refinement; the higher the state, the more delicately adapted to it the man. In furtherance of this choice, it so happened that a ship lay in the harbor; one of those questionable cruisers, frequent at that day, which, without being absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility of character. This vessel had recently arrived from the Spanish Main, and, within three days’ time, would sail for Bristol. Hester Prynne—whose vocation, as a self-enlisted Sister of Charity, had brought her acquainted with the captain and crew—could take upon herself to secure the passage of two individuals and a child, with all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than desirable…

“The picture of human life in the market-place, though its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. A party of Indians—in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deer-skin robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear—stood apart, with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain. Nor, wild as were these painted barbarians, were they the wildest feature of the scene. This distinction could more justly be claimed by some mariners,—a part of the crew of the vessel from the Spanish Main,—who had come ashore to see the humors of Election Day. They were rough-looking desperadoes, with sun-blackened faces, and an immensity of beard; their wide, short trousers were confined about the waist by belts, often clasped with a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and, in some instances, a sword. From beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. They transgressed, without fear or scruple, the rules of behavior that were binding on all others; smoking tobacco under the beadle’s very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing, at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitæ from pocket-flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them. It remarkably characterized the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call it, that a license was allowed the seafaring class, not merely for their freaks on shore, but for far more desperate deeds on their proper element. The sailor of that day would go near to be arraigned as a pirate in our own. There could be little doubt, for instance, that this very ship’s crew, though no unfavorable specimens of the nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should phrase it, of depredations on the Spanish commerce, such as would have perilled all their necks in a modern court of justice.

“But the sea, in those old times, heaved, swelled, and foamed, very much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at regulation by human law. The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling, and become at once, if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic, or casually associate. Thus, the Puritan elders, in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the clamor and rude deportment of these jolly seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion, when so reputable a citizen as old Roger Chillingworth, the physician, was seen to enter the market-place, in close and familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel.

“The latter was by far the most showy and gallant figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a profusion of ribbons on his garment, and gold-lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a feather. There was a sword at his side, and a sword-cut on his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to display than hide. A landsman could hardly have worn this garb and shown this face, and worn and shown them both with such a galliard air, without undergoing stern question before a magistrate, and probably incurring fine or imprisonment, or perhaps an exhibition in the stocks. As regarded the shipmaster, however, all was looked upon as pertaining to the character, as to a fish his glistening scales.”

English merchantman, drawn by seaman Edward Barlow in his famous journal, of the sort that traded to North America. Some buccaneers and pirates sailed ships this large, but not as many did as Hollywood had led us to believe. (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.)

Hawthorne’s description is quite factual. Owing to the need to write this piece as efficiently as possible (I’m either busy or lazy, or both), I’ll quote here, and later several times, from The Buccaneer’s Realm (Potomac Books, 2007), or at least from the draft, this being easier than consulting the print version for which I have no digital copy, the book being edited on paper–old school, that is.

“Sailors [in New England] are almost certainly exempt anyway from much of this [religious] authority of the petty sort, or at least visiting pirates and privateers are, provided they keep to the “ordinaries and publique houses enterteinment” [James Duncan Phillips, Salem in the Seventeenth Century, 1933] on the waterfront where they commonly spend large sums drinking. There probably never has been, nor is there likely to ever be, a busy seapor t that lacks the taverns and women that [historically male] sailors seek when ashore, no matter the local moral culture. Mariners are tolerated in such places because they are a necessity–even tavern keepers may be precluded from arresting sailors for non-payment of their drinking debts, in order that ships can sail with their full crews. Nor can a sailor’s maritime character be much altered anyway, at sea or ashore. New England, after all, is not only a Puritan culture but a quintessentially maritime one, with a history of privateering, a major shipbuilding industry, seven hundred thirty or more vessels ranging from six to two hundred fifty tons in 1676, and a great trade to the English colonies,Europe, and even Guinea, Madagascar, and “Scanderoon” (İskenderun, also called Alexandretta). It is impossible to imagine a Puritan selectman attempting to enforce a law against kissing in public, for example, against a filibuster or buccaneer whose hands are figuratively speaking still red with blood and whose plunder is aiding in the financial salvation of the colony.

Buccaneers & Puritans

Again, an excerpt from The Buccaneers Realm:

In August 1678, privateer Bernard Lemoyne, fitted out in France, armed with a commission from Governor Pouançay at Saint Domingue, commanding the Toison d’Or (Golden Fleece) and in consort with Captain Pérou and perhaps others as well, cruises the south Cuban coast. In Matanzas Bay these privateers capture three Dutch trading ships ranging from twenty-four to twenty-six guns, and a Spaniard of twenty guns. Sailing to Martinique, the seat of French government in the Caribbean, to have the prizes condemned, Lemoyne faces a strident objection from the majority of his crew. Being English(although recruited at Petit Goave), they prefer to carry the prizes into an English port. However, by sailing with the French they have obviously refused Governor Vaughan’s offer of amnesty at Jamaica, as well as violated the law against serving under a foreign commission, and so these English must carry their prizes elsewhere, and so they do, to Boston, where they and their French captain are received with open arms. The reception is not surprising: the total value of the prizes, including one lost on the coast but whose cargo of any significant value is saved, is estimated at three hundred thousand pieces-of-eight.

That various sea rovers find their way to New England should come as no surprise: the New World is full of them. That some Puritan merchants support piracy should come as no surprise, either: Puritans have been involved in piracy and privateering since the 1630s when they briefly colonized Providence (Santa Catalina) and Henrietta (San Andrés) in the Caribbean as bases from which to raid England’s great hated rival, Catholic Spain.[ii]Further, New England has just endured King Philip’s War, a bloody conflict that has left the economy in shambles and the Faithful wondering what this manner of“God’s Providence” portends. The sudden influx of goods and silver is needed and surely welcomed, and any rationale is better than none. After all, the prizes were seized under a French commission and condemned in Martinique. Bostonians are merely providing a reasonable market.

New Englanders will continue such support throughout the period, with even less scruple, permitting the “refitting at the dock at Boston” in 1684 of the Spanish prize La Paz (Peace), renamed la Mutine and commanded by Captain Michel (Andrieszoon). She was captured near Cartagena by a French squadron commanded by Laurens, and whoseother captains included Michel, Yanky (Willems), Le Sage, Bréha (Bart), Blot, Grogniet,and an unidentified Englishman. With her is the Françoise, originally captured by the Spanish from the French and called by her captors the Francesa, then re-captured by Laurens at the same time as La Paz, and which has now passed to Yanky’s command. The Spanish ship is rich with goods: “The Bostoners no sooner heard of her [the Paz] off the coast than they despatched a messenger and pilot to convoy her into port in defiance of the King’s proclamation.” The filibusters purchase much of the “choice goods” in Boston,and thus “are likely to leave the greatest part of their plate behind them.” (CSPC 1681-1685, nos. 1845, 1851.)

In 1683 Captain Henley fits out a ship in Boston and sails for the Red Sea, seeking the Mogul’s rich ships. Associated with him are the pirate captains Thomas Woolery and Christopher Goff, and in 1685 both Henley and Goff are proclaimed pirates. The pirates Graham and Veale briefly visit in1685, but are recognized as pirates who have attacked an English vessel. In the same year the pirate Jean Hamlin returns to the sea in a ship named after his first and notorious vessel: “The new Trompeuse was fitted and protected by the godly New England independents.” Woolery returns to Boston in 1687 from “the South Sea,” after burning his ship at New Providence. New England is confirmed as a pirate “retreat.” (CSPC 1681-1685, nos. 2042, 1563; CSP 1685-1688,nos. 207, 210, 1405, 1449, 1449i, 1555.)

Puritans have a distinct reputation in both religion and trade, perhaps best described by the caustic Ned Ward: “The Inhabitants seem very Religious, showing many outward and visible Signs of an inward and Spiritual Grace: But tho’ they wear in their Faces the Innocence of Doves,you will find them in their Dealings, as Subtile as Serpents. Interest is their Faith, Money their God, and Large Possessions the only Heaven they covet…And it is a Proverb with those that know them, Whosover believes a New-England Saint, shall be sure to be cheated: And he that knows how to deal with their Traders, may Deal with the Devil and fear no Craft.” (Edward Ward, A Trip to New England, 1699.) Scholar Philip Ainsworth Means writes that for the Puritans, money was “to be worked for enthusiastically, all to the Glory of God,” and that, indeed, Puritans are “the establishers of [the United States’] present attitude toward business affairs,” although certainly the Dutch of New York influence it as well. (Means, The Spanish Main, 1935.)

However, New England is neither a single colony nor completely homogeneous. Rhode Island has a similar reputation as Massachusetts,at least in regard to support of pirates, or privateers of dubious commission,based some say on Rhode Island’s permissive coastline. Here John Coxon threatens to bring his cargo of indigo stolen in 1679 at the Bay of Honduras,if he is not permitted to unlade the cargo at Jamaica, paying duties on it, of course–the pirates would be “well entertained” at Rhode Island. In 1683 two pirate vessels, one of them commanded by Thomas Paine, are also well-received at Rhode Island. Governor Cranfield of New Hampshire asks Rhode Island authorities to arrest them, but is rebuffed. New Hampshire and Connecticut are said to be clones of Massachusetts in government and religion, and which way the original Puritan colony goes, so they go, although the governors of New Hampshire do attempt to reign in the Assembly, a creature of the Puritan congregational ministers. The colony also gives aid and protection to Spanish prisoners who escape from a French pirate in Boston, for example, and Governor Cranfield informs the English government of Massachusetts’s pandering to pirates.

Common seventeenth century New England ensign. It is nothing more than a red English ensign with an oak tree in the canton. Today the flag is often depicted with a pine tree.

Puritan influence extends to some degree both to the Caribbean and to English buccaneers as well. Many of the early buccaneers are English soldiers recruited under Cromwell’s “Western Design” with its failed Cromwell attempt against the Spanish at Hispaniola,followed by the conquest of Jamaica, and certainly some of them are either Puritans,or were, or have absorbed the Puritan ethos prevalent in Cromwell’s army. The courageous and famous Captain Richard Sawkins, a “generous man” who throws dice overboard in anger when he finds buccaneers using them on a Sunday, is almost certainly an heir to some degree of this Puritan tradition. Robert Clarke, “Governor and Captain General of the Bahamas,” independent preacher, and granter of piratical commissions “to make war on the Spaniards of Cuba, St. Augustine, and others,” is one of Oliver Cromwell’s former officers, and likewise heir to the Lord Protector’s Puritan and military traditions, as are many in the Caribbean.[

New England not only receives various pirates and “privateers,” but even has those who settle here. One of them, Samuel Moseley of Dorchester, Massachusetts, commands the Salisbury ketch, a coast guard with crew of forty-seven, along the New England coastlinefrom 1673 to 1674 in order to defend against Dutch incursions. Moseley is admirably suited to the job, for he reputedly has been a buccaneer or“privateer” at Jamaica. In 1675 he is commissioned to seek Dutch “pirates” who have been attacking English traders along the coast of Acadia. Sailing in consort with a French vessel, he soon discovers the trio of Peter Roderigo commanding the Edward and Thomas, Cornelius Andreson commanding the hired boat Penobscot Shallop, and George Manning, an Englishman captured by the Dutch and who has taken up their cause, commanding the Phillip Shallop. However, the issue is not as simple as it seems.

Roderigo and Andreson are actually legitimate privateers. Roderigo, a “Flanderkin,” Andreson, a Dutchman, and JohnRhoades, an Englishman serving as pilot, were recently officers under HurriaenAernouts of the Dutch Flying Post-Horse privateer, attacking and driving off the Frenchalong the Acadian coast. Aernouts lawfully claimed Acadia for Holland, and before he departed for the Caribbean commissioned Roderigo, Andreson, and Rhoades to manage the trade along this territory of “New Holland.” Aernouts subsequently sails with Reyning in an attack on Granada, but both are captured by the French. Unfortunately for the officers he leaves behind, English traders interlope on the Dutch-claimed territory. The officers steal sheep from ashore,and order traders at sea to strike “A Mayne for the Prince of orainge,” then rob them of “Beaver and Moose” pelts and skins. (To “strike amain” is to lower topsails, or mainsails if topsails are not set, to indicate submission or surrender.[iii]At one point, Roderigo beats Edward Youring, one of his English crewmen who objects to the theft of English goods. He is left ashore for a day “to be starved with could [cold].”

New England merchant jack, and possibly a flag flown at the masthead as well. A “St. George” with an oak tree in the canton.

In response, the English accuse them of piracy, and it is in this pretended capacity that Captain Moseley engages them. The battle is over quickly. The Dutch vessels are tiny, and Manning suddenly changes sidesand engages his Dutch consorts. Mosely bids the Dutch “A Mayne for the King of England,” and Youring lowers Roderigo’s mainsail three or four feet to indicate surrender, in spite of orders to the contrary. Now attacked three to two, and by vessels flying English, French, and Dutch colors, Aernouts’s officers strike for true. Roderigo is convicted of piracy, but pardoned. Andreson is found guilty after the judges direct the verdict, having been first acquitted. The eight remaining are soon tried. Three, including Rhoades, are to be banished.The five others are condemned, including John Williams who had once served under Captain Morris, the famous buccaneer who killed the famous pirate Manoel Pardal Rivera, a Portuguese in the service of Spain. In 1682 Williams will again be in trouble for piracy, this time in Hartford, Connecticut.[iv]

The story does not end here. King Philip’s War breaks out, and Captain Moseley soon leads a company of volunteers, old soldiers, prisoners, and others against the Wampanoag leader [in this early example of unjust war against Native Americans]. The privateer earns a reputation for both courage and cruelty; his hatred of all Native Americans, friend or foe, is implacable. He is a butcher of men. In this company sometimes called “Moseley’s Privateers” are several condemned men condemned for piracy. Among these is Captain Andreson, who is soon commended for his bravery in the field in both Moseley’s and Wheeler’s companies, and pardoned. Captain Roderigo serves in Captain Scottow’s company, and similarly distinguishes himself and is likewise pardoned. King Philip’s War has everyone’s attention–none of the condemned are ever put to death.[

Pirates & Puritans

“The Town of Boston in New England” by Capt. John Bonner, 1722. (Leventhal Map and Education Center.)

Moving into the early eighteenth century, a period of fascination for many–the time of Blackbeard, Roberts, and their ilk–, I won’t add much on them for now. Their Puritan and Massachusetts contacts were largely associated with piracies in local waters, and, quite deservedly, hangings for such crimes. I’m much less interested in these pirates, considering them little more than thugs with armed ships. Largely composed of privateers angry at losing their traditional trade in a depressed economy when peace arrived, they made no significant attacks by land, ran from most fights with naval vessels and others armed against them, lost nearly all fights with the English navy, and succeeded largely because there wasn’t an adequate local naval presence.

Their entire reputation in the Anglo-American community is based largely on the fact that they had great early publicity (Charles Johnson) which Hollywood adopted and expanded; talked bigger and badder than they really were; captured a large number of vessels (but mostly by frightening poor merchant crews into submission); and, frankly, because their make-up was largely Anglo-American (none of those French or other foreigners to share the credit with). As for their purported colorblindness toward people of darker skins: it didn’t really exist. They were inveterate slavers, just like honest seamen were. For reasons of cognitive dissonance I think (we like pirates but need to rationalize much of their behavior so we don’t feel bad about liking them), these pirates have been variously turned into social and political rebels, “knights of the sea,” and persecuted “good guys.” In fact, although there is always some small kernel of truth to all of these imaginings, it is not enough to change the simple fact that these men were armed thieves at sea, willing to use violence against innocent seamen and passengers.

I’ve dealt thoroughly with these issues in The Golden Age of Piracy.

For those interested, I highly recommend George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730, 1923. It’s a fun read with plenty of excerpts from original accounts.

If I do have an interest in early eighteenth century piracy and Puritans, it’s with that grand old hypocrite and religious extremist, the Reverend Cotton Mather. An interesting and often despicable man, he celebrated the infamous witch trials, wrote an excellent but unpublished book on medical practice (including advice on getting fresh air and exercise, and not smoking), supported inoculation against smallpox in spite of strong opposition, and wrote and published books and pamphlets on a variety of subjects ranging from theology to history.

He also preached and published against pirates sentenced to hang in the early eighteenth century.

And hang them the devout New Englanders did.

Regarding citations, I have only used them in the case of quotations. Additional citations may be found in The Buccaneer’s Realm.